No exodus to state sector after VAT added to private school fees, say English councils.

[FruitPolos]

Article in today's Guardian. Interesting to note the comments from Surrey in particular given the discussion on Mumsnet about this particular area.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/10/no-exodus-to-state-sector-after-vat-added-to-private-school-fees-say-english-councils

"Surrey, which has large numbers of children in private education, recorded a dip in the proportion of families getting their first pick of schools for September. But Clare Curran, the county council’s cabinet member for children, families and lifelong learning, said: “Surrey has not seen a significant rise in the number of applications for a year 7 state school place for children currently in the independent sector compared to last year.“For September 2025, 664 on-time applications were received from Surrey residents with children in the independent sector, compared with 608 for September 2024, a rise of 56.“While the percentage of applicants offered their first preference school has decreased for September 2025 [80.6%] compared with 2024 [83.1%], the 2025 figure is not dissimilar to the 2023 figure of 81.3%.”

It’ll be interesting to see what improvements are made to each state school with the sum raised.

Your experience fits the ‘narrative’ perfectly - a small number of elite schools will be unaffected and in fact might actually benefit financially due to the ability to reclaim capital expenditure while not having to offer much in the way of discounts to struggling parents. Looking at your very narrow experience for signs of the impact this is having on the sector is a bit like looking to Oxford as an indicator of how funding shortfalls are impacting UK higher education.

And can you remind us how your own experience of education is any broader? Aren't your DC still in the early stages of primary? How many years of first hand British education experience do you have? I have over thirty (excluding my own).

If you can afford the pre VAT tag at these schools, you can most likely afford the 20% VAT.

Clearly not everyone can, it's pretty simple.

20% hike on anything will change who can afford it.

We have friends with the eldest going to say Eton/ Winchester 6h form, middle one has SEN and goes to top 10 super selective private as very bright, and now VAT means the youngest will be going to state non-selective. They can't remove the child from 6th form as it's hugely disruptive, and they can't remove the child with SEN as they wouldn't cope in state. When the eldest is through to university, it will be too late for the youngest to re-apply.

Again, the gov will be spending money on a state school place for a child who previously cost the system exactly zero 🤷‍♀️

@ThonBanane Where have I said that my experience was anything but anecdotal?.

Well, you wrote that

If you can afford the pre VAT tag at these schools, you can most likely afford the 20% VAT. I was replying to the conjecture that schools will be dumbing down in their selection because of VAT. Maybe the case in some regions but not in the top London selectives or boarding schools.

And then you added examples about the very narrow and unrepresentative social bubble in which you live. You didn't say that you know many people who can afford the increase, but you have no idea how representative that is. Or did I miss it?

Why is there so much bitterness around affluence and affordability?

For the record, I don't send my kids to private schools but consider the policy of adding VAT absolutely bonkers: morally flawed and practically counterproductive.
I can't speak for others, but my bitterness has nothing to do with affluence and everything to do with being out of touch and with failing to realise how unrepresentative one's situation is.

This is a recurring problem in many parts of our societies:
wealthy politicians fail to realise and cannot relate to how ordinary people live;
bosses at work with no children fail to appreciate how hard it is for working parents; etc etc etc

Did I touch a nerve?

I am not relying solely on my own experience, which I think is precisely my point re your contributions so far.

@Araminta1003 A private education all the way through at top London selective private schools sets you back up to 300k at secondary and 150k at prep and rising. That is 500k per child and it makes even the richest consider whether it’s worth it, if there are reasonable state options available, which there are in London.

Yes! Clearly if your mortgage is paid off and you have a few millions in the bank, by all means go private.
But for everyone else it's also a question of:

• job stability: even if you can afford it now, will you be able to afford it for all the years your kids will stay in that school? I forget the exact numbers, but the top % of earners is a very unstable group, and many people don't stay in that group many years
• cost opportunity: even if your income remains stable and you can afford it, what else could you have done with that money? I can relate to the parents who think they'd rather help their children financially wen they are in their 20s than by paying for private schools

This happened at our previous school too.

No you didn't.

Your posts generally seem to focus rather a lot on SEN DC, presumably your own experience, yet that is hardly representative of the sector as a whole. Valid yes, representative no to quote your previous post.

Not in Hampshire. Secondary schools (as well as primary schools) are applying to reduce their PAN.
I’m sure there are many other counties reducing their secondary schools PAN too.

Yes, I do speak to my own experience, which includes send. Send children constitute about 20% of mainstream independent students, btw - not the majority, but significantly larger proportion of the sector than elite London selectives.

If you are looking at my posting history you will see that I am also concerned with the broader impact on the private sector. As an individual family, we will be fine - we can stretch to meet vat (for now anyways) and our school will probably endure in some form (worried for the junior school, though). BUT I don’t live in such a bubble that I am unaware of parents in my community that are having to leave/forego a private school that might make a big difference for their children, or families forced into an abrupt change because their school has closed, or teacher friends who are worried for redundancy.

as an individual I can be fine, but also see that others are not fine and query the rationale. Remember that 80% of us can suck it up and pay the tax but the policy would still cost more to the country than it gains.

Amongst my group of Russell uni predominantly privately educated friends in London, all with 2 salaried professional jobs, only those with inheritances or in corporate law/investment banking can still afford private school for 2 DC plus. So we are definitely seeing families only sending the DC who need it, that tends to be the DC with ASD and ADHD and dyslexia etc. The bright confident DC with no additional needs are all attending outstanding state schools all the way through.
I do also have a lot of Asian friends (Chinese, Japanese & Indian primarily) of the same demographic with just 1 DC who are still paying up for private school and then it tends to be the most selective kind.
I also have rich friends living in West London but that is family funded, not through their own earnings. That group had their houses bought by their parents and the parents are also paying the private school fees to minimise inheritance tax.

I thought it was obvious that I was talking specifically about the price tags for the top London selectives and boarding schools. Not all private schools. I was actually highlighting that the economic circumstances of parents sending their DC to such schools means that VAT doesn't impact much. This backs up what is said on these threads that the most prestigious schools are not really being affected by VAT. I wasn't saying that is the case for parents in all private schools across the UK. Why are my anecdotal comments any less valid than those of others? It is quite ironic to be criticised for living in a bubble in a forum complaining about the hardship of VAT on private school fees when most people in the country could never dream of affording them, irrespective of any sacrifices they could make.

Why are you criticised? Because you keep coming back to your own specific situation.

Brain drain refers to research scientists and engineers being lured overseas. Not generally people who can afford 'top private schools' in the first place. I don't know any scientists or engineers who send their children to private schools in the UK - we really aren't paid that much, even in quite senior positions!

“Brain drain refers to research scientists and engineers being lured overseas. Not generally people who can afford 'top private schools' in the first place. I don't know any scientists or engineers who send their children to private schools in the UK - we really aren't paid that much, even in quite senior positions!”

Haha, most of the corporate lawyers or bankers I work with had Oxbridge degrees in things like Science and Engineering, once upon a time, and did a conversion course. Courtesy of Blair/Brown milk round once upon a time in the late 90s/early 2000s. These are the people paying the most taxes by the way, funding the NHS and state schooling. Not me personally as I work part time in a professional support role now. But the inverse snobbery towards bankers/top lawyers etc is quite astounding. You do not get into these professions just via “connections”, contrary to popular belief.

I agree with @Araminta1003, I think when PP referred to a “brain drain” here she really meant high earners/additional rate taxpayers deciding to transfer abroad (which can be relatively easy in roles such as commercial law, finance, consultancy and the like).

Meaning a loss of highly educated professionals and also the income and other tax they’d have paid (which should matter to people even if they don’t see emigrating bankers as any great loss to the country).

The most common professions I've come across at DD's school (in rough order) are Doctors (GPs, hospital consultants and private practice), Pharmaceutical jobs (some who were previously doctors), Finance, Entrepreneurs, Engineers, IT, Lawyers, Teachers (usually working at the school).

Those do seem to me to be professions which you would count as a 'brain drain' if you lost them.

Usually both parents are in one of those professions.

We - a couple of mid-career academics - send our DS to a private prep. We love the education he's getting, but it's not a very comfortable lifestyle. The VAT really hits hard for people like us.

We're not British, and the pull to universities in other countries does feel quite strong right now.

I know engineers at private schools 🤷‍♀️
There were scientists and academics at our prep school too.

I was just clarifying that I was speaking about my DCs' specific schools and not the sector as a whole. It is perfectly normal to respond to ranting posts that wholly miss the point. That's the only reason I came back to it. Your prejudice seems to be colouring your comprehension as well.

@strawberrybubblegum good point that lots of PS parents are doctors, which is another profession where we are seeing a “brain drain” abroad. And which should be much more of a concern than just the lost income taxes!

And again